Maybe all NS Black Metal bands should be changed to just Black Metal, and NS be put in as a lyrical theme.

Unless NSBM has a distinct sound that is separate from regular black metal. If so, perhaps it is more than just a genre based on lyrical content - Goregrind started out as grindcore with gore lyrics but has a distinct style separate from grindcore nowadays. DSBM is also distinct, although the genre here is more accurately called "Depressive black metal" - a slow tempo, emphasis on atmosphere, tortured vocals, etc.,

_________________And they'll tell you black is really white - The moon is just the sun at night - And when you walk in golden halls - You get to keep the gold that falls - It's Heaven and Hell

Goregrind started out as grindcore with gore lyrics but has a distinct style separate from grindcore nowadays.

Can you please stop talking about goregrind as though you know the full history of it? There's a bit more to it than just "gore lyrics"; a lot of it's carcass worship, a lot of it was also determination to push the boundaries of what could be considered "music". It's a separate musical direction to grindcore, so it deserves its own musical classification; it isn't solely identified by lyrical content.

Quote:

DSBM is also distinct, although the genre here is more accurately called "Depressive black metal" - a slow tempo, emphasis on atmosphere, tortured vocals, etc.,

Correct, DSBM differs from typical black metal in that it emphasises (cold) atmosphere instead of rhythm or melody.

Quote:

Unless NSBM has a distinct sound that is separate from regular black metal.

To my ears, it doesn't, and I personally don't differentiate between the two (as opposed to regular BM being good, and NSBM being white-pride Nazi horseshit). While I voluntarily steer clear of any NS-themed crap, I have noticed running elements between NSBM bands... they tend to incorporate anthemic song writing amidst the usual buzz of lo-fi production. Again, I'm not an expert, and I'm happy not to be one. Therefore, I leave "NS Black Metal" tags as they are.

For me (I'm not sure exactly how the powers that be feel about this) the term "speed metal" refers to a very specific sound, and almost any tweaking of it changes it to heavy metal or power metal, possibly even thrash if it's weird enough, and Running Wild doesn't really fit that sound for a majority of their career. The sound I think of is like Helloween's Walls of Jericho, Blind Guardian's Battalions of Fear, bits of Heathen's first album or for a more obscure example, Vectom's Rules of Mystery. Now with that specific sound in mind, I think it's pretty clear that Running Wild's first two albums (coincidentally, before the piratey shtick was introduced) are pretty much a textbook example of what the quintessential German speed metal sound is. Under Jolly Roger and Port Royal had moments but on the whole were mostly a more traditional heavy metal, Death or Glory and Blazon Stone mostly the same idea but with arguable bits of power metal and hard rock thrown in with the bits of speed metal and predominant trad metal. Pile of Skulls, I can understand calling a speed metal album, thanks to tracks like "Whirlwind" and the title track, but most of the record is still just straight up, awesome heavy metal with bits of the other melodic genres sprinkled in. Black Hand Inn is actually probably the closest to power metal they ever got, and the addition of Jorg Michael certainly helped that transformation, while Masquerade and The Rivalry kept up with the heavy blend of trad/power metal while introducing more prominent hard-rockish numbers on the latter especially. Victory is kind of hard to classify for me as it's probably the most melodic album but it's almost a perfect trifecta of trad metal, hard rock, and power metal. The Brotherhood flip flops between light power metal and hard rock, while Rogues en Vogue flip flops between light trad metal and hard rock. Shadowmaker is basically entirely hard rock with the odd metal moment here and there.

In short, in the scope of their career, heavy/power metal is probably the most accurate as a whole of their work, but the first two albums are undeniably speed metal albums, with Gates to Purgatory being my favorite speed metal album of all time. So I think the genre tag is acceptable as is, but adding speed into it as a "Speed metal (early) / heavy/power metal (later)" would be fine albeit a tad unnecessary. But with that said, the lyrical themes field does differentiate between their earlier satanic and hard rocking themes and their new pirates and history themes, and considering those old themes are pretty much exclusive to the two speed metal albums, you could probably make a case for adding the speed metal tag back. BUT, overall, it's fine and I don't really think it's that big of a deal.

While the song "The Blackmobile" has some important Black Metal influences (mainly guitar wise), I think the rest of the songs have little to nothing to do with the genre...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z9Zhw433Ats

I understand this may seem like bitching about it, but believe me, I'm not bitching (at least not on purpose XD)

Thanks ! (Sorry for posting it in the wrong place the first time)

Last edited by Christ_ins_anity on Tue Jun 12, 2012 10:16 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Genre of http://www.metal-archives.com/bands/Skylark/1618 should be changed to Symphonic Power Metal. In the case of Skylark it's important. They've released the first symphonic metal album in Italy, Dragon's Secrets in 1997. Instruments like harpsichord and piano used in every album and in most of their songs, almost every song has symphonic arrangements. I think it's enough. They've released 9 full-length albums. At least they're not less symphonic than Fairyland, Dragonland and Rhapsody of Fire as you can hear in the samples below:

While, to be fair, I'm only familiar with their newest album, it's pretty clearly a black/death metal album. The only out of the ordinary feature for the style is the clean vocals, but remember how silly it was when Children of Bodom and the countless soundalikes of them were dubbed something like "melodic power metal with harsh vocals"? Calling Satan's Host something like "black/death metal with clean vocals" is equally goofy. If we do that, why not dub Bolt Thrower "death metal with deep vocals" and Corpsegrinder era Cannibal Corpse "death metal with mid range vocals"? I realize I'm no mod, but I see no reason to change it.

Now that we're on this subject, I'd like to point out that Desultor's only full length sounds an awful lot like the newest Satan's Host album, yet is dubbed "technical thrash metal" here. I'm not sure what I'd suggest changing it to, but there's certainly a lot more than just technical thrash metal at work here:

The most recent album, "Thoughts", is very slow and dreary, a lot like old Shape of Despair. Don't really hear anything gothic about it. Perhaps the use of violins makes this band gothic? I don't know.

What about bands that have at least one full-length with different genre, should it be written in the genre field?For example, Viper with their classic power metal 80's albums and comeback "All My Life" have three kinda punkish/pop punk albums "Evolution", "Coma Rage" and "Tem Pra Todo Mundo".

What about bands that have at least one full-length with different genre, should it be written in the genre field?For example, Viper with their classic power metal 80's albums and comeback "All My Life" have three kinda punkish/pop punk albums "Evolution", "Coma Rage" and "Tem Pra Todo Mundo".

It doesn't always need to be written. In your Viper example I think it was worth to add it.

I'm thinking of changing Baroness' genre. Maybe "progressive alternative rock/metal (later) with the current genre as earlier. Any feedback before I do it?

"Alternative" is really ambiguous, it seems to be used as a catch-all more than an accurate description. "Progressive sludge metal/stoner rock" describes the music as a whole much better, since the latter, as it applies to bands like Clutch and Kyuss, is something that you can hear in all of their full-length albums.

Did anyone check these bands? Didn't see any changes, and some of the genres are way off.

Zodijackyl wrote:

A lot of bands from Connecticut are labeled as "Melodic Death/Thrash Metal" when it's not a very good description of any.

Sonne Adam's genre should be changed from "death metal" to "death/doom metal." It's probably listed as "death metal" because it was submitted before the album was out, and the EP is death metal. The album is full-on death/doom.

Sonne Adam's genre should be changed from "death metal" to "death/doom metal." It's probably listed as "death metal" because it was submitted before the album was out, and the EP is death metal. The album is full-on death/doom.

Metantoine wrote:

Agreed. I thought they were already classified as this...

Pardon to barge in but does MA consider every crawling death metal band as death/doom now? I guess what I mean is that I disagree with it being labelled like that, there's plenty of doom influences in it but the general pace and the song construction hasn't much to do with death/doom bands. Take Asphyx as an example, they blitz into fast paced full-on death metal assault, but when they do doomy sections they really go down into a crawl and stay there for a while. Sonne Adam is more doomy in terms of atmosphere and bleakness, while the music is basically mid-paced OSDM.

Next you know Incantation will be called for debate... There's stuff like Gorement which is much more worthy of the tag death/doom, but even there I get why it's labelled as "only" death metal if you take into account all the demos and EPs.

That's some massive hyperbole right there. Sonne Adam have more death/doom songs on their debut album than Incantation have in their entire career.

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There's stuff like Gorement which is much more worthy of the tag death/doom, but even there I get why it's labelled as "only" death metal if you take into account all the demos and EPs.

I actually brought up Gorement a few years ago, and they were briefly changed to "death/doom" due to the perceived Katatonia influence in the lead work on many of the songs of the album, but one of the mods (helvede, I think) told me they were more akin to Finnish-style DM and changed it back. I don't know, I don't really find them any less doomy than a band like Rippikoulu, which are tagged as death/doom...

That's some massive hyperbole right there. Sonne Adam have more death/doom songs on their debut album than Incantation have in their entire career.

It was meant as an hyperbole but it makes sense in the context I put it into. If you quote it out of context it will loose its significance.

droneriot wrote:

androdion wrote:

There's stuff like Gorement which is much more worthy of the tag death/doom, but even there I get why it's labelled as "only" death metal if you take into account all the demos and EPs.

I actually brought up Gorement a few years ago, and they were briefly changed to "death/doom" due to the perceived Katatonia influence in the lead work on many of the songs of the album, but one of the mods (helvede, I think) told me they were more akin to Finnish-style DM and changed it back. I don't know, I don't really find them any less doomy than a band like Rippikoulu, which are tagged as death/doom...

I remember seeing Gorement tagged as death/doom. They do sound at times like Katatonia on their debut album, but as I said above I can understand why they're tagged as "just" death metal. The demos and EPs all sound pretty brutal and pure OSDM, I don't agree much on the account of sounding Finnish, although I can see why Helvede would say that because of the atmosphere and some leads on The Ending Quest. Still, looking at the big picture I'd say that "death metal" is what best describes them, even though their album is more death/doom.

As for the actual subject at hand I will reiterate what I've said before, Sonne Adam don't sound like death/doom to me. Sure it's a clear influence on the band's sound but the songs aren't structured nor played in a death/doom fashion, it's just "slow death metal" to use a term that has been brought to discussion before, albeit not in this specific thread. Take Rippikoulu which you mentioned, that's a good example of death/doom! If you can't hear the differences between that and The Ending Quest, which are in fact already noticeable, maybe you can hear the ones between that and Transformation.

Another comparative example would be Rippikoulu vs Purtenance, and bear with me for a second. Purtenance has a lot of death/doom influence and some crawling sections reminiscent of the fusion genre right? Many people even call it death/doom. But do you consider Purtenance to be death/doom based on some slow atmospheric sections when the music is basically structured as OSDM? That's my point with Sonne Adam, they just don't write doom songs, they have all the atmosphere and a bit of the slow tempo but it's just "slow death metal" that reeks of dark occultism.

If all album would be called out on its atmosphere alone then you'd have to call half the Finnish scene death/doom as well. The doom influence is there mind you, but the songs are plain death metal.

I'm curious to know why Paradigma and Black Lodge (both from Norway) are listed as Doom Metal. Both of them were way too unconventional to be considered traditional doom metal. Both played music in the same vein as early-Funeral and later-Unholy, Death/Doom Metal with grunts and female vocals. Unlike Theatre of Tragedy or Paradise Lost, neither band really had much of a Gothic influence. They were literally just Death/Doom with predominant female vocals. Paradigma is a bit more atmospheric and experimental (especially in their later, unreleased work), so I could perhaps understand a tag like Melodic, Experimental, or Atmospheric Doom. However, Black Lodge sounded incredibly cold and dissonant, with very clear Death Metal and Funeral Doom elements, so I think Black Lodge is very worthy of a Death/Doom tag.

With that, here's something I would like to know. When a band plays a spin-off of a sub-genre that's hard to categorize, are they just tagged as the basic sub-genre? Like with Nightly Gale being labelled as just Doom Metal (despite them having an incredibly avant-garde sound), or Altar of Plagues just being labelled as Black Metal (despite the fact that they have a wide variety of other elements, such as Post-Rock, Doom, Drone, Ambient, etc.).

Last edited by TheUnhinged on Sun Aug 24, 2014 11:39 am, edited 1 time in total.

Joined: Tue May 31, 2011 1:24 amPosts: 2785Location: A step closer to home

Posted: Fri Jul 20, 2012 7:48 pm

Sludgecore is usually used to refer to sludge "metal" bands that take more influence from hardcore punk than they do from doom metal. If that band sounds like "sludge metal mixed with metalcore", then the genre field should probably be changed to that, because that's not what sludgecore is.

This is a little nitpicky, but there's a handful of bands who's genre is "NWOBHM, Heavy Metal" - isn't it sort of redundant to say "heavy metal" twice?

Well, NWOBHM has a sound of its own, and that makes it a genre on itself. Listing both genres is not redundant since they are different from each other. Quoting another mod on this matter, "perhaps those bands started out in that direction, but then adopted a more general trad metal sound, or a mixture of both". In any case, mentioning both genres is ok when both genres can be found in a band's sound.

Seconding the points put forward by OpsiusCato, drone. MA considers "NWOBHM" and "Heavy Metal" to be distinct styles. The fact we include NWOBHM as its own genre has been contentious in the past, but there was enough discussion towards NWOBHM being distinct enough as a style to warrant its own label.